A cold night in the thin air of the Overrealm, but the chill cannot pierce the flame that burns within the lonely hunter’s chest. Tonight, the hunter is not lonely… tonight the whispering winds of the barren sky have brought another soul close enough to share the flames and the meal of roasting basilisk tonight. As the meal nears completion the dark elf leans over, her silver hair catching amber and yellow hues from the firelight.
“Tell me about your race,” she encourages the hunter. “Tell me about the Sarnak.”
“There is little to tell,” he replies.
“Tell me of your history, of your homeland… tell me what your people believe in.”
“Well,” he begins with a deep whistling breath, “as a race we are young. We know little of our history, less of the reasons for our creation. Kunark is a continent torn by war, and that has spread even to the islands in the deep. Despite all our efforts more of our history is lost in the battle every day.
As for belief, we are united by our freedom from subjugation. We do not stress about the will of our creator, we had the benefit of knowing those who created us and and with their deaths our race was born into a world without doubt or restriction.”
For a time, only the rustle of feet from the basilisks on the plain below the mesa can be heard. The hunter and his companion contemplate the sky, which in this land free from the restraint of the world’s surface appears as a field of shining gems. The night delivers a pause both forbidding and romantic, and with her next question the dark elf captures that spirit.
“Does your race know of loss? Have you ever lost something important to you?” She asks, her tone hesitating.
“Lost?” The hunter hesitates, unsure of himself for a moment. “My people are without family. My people are not born, we are created… we mature inside machines and in this way it is Gorowyn herself that is our mother, not any mortal. Our brief history since we took control of our own destiny has been filled with triumph, not loss.”
She considers this a moment, picking at her meal with ornate cutlery that she produced from her bag a while before. She chuckles, not a cold sound but a warm one.
“It seems your people and mine have much in common,” she says, the excitement plain in her eyes. “We too took control of our own destiny, with the blessing of our creator. We have lost much though, with the fall of the gates and the destruction of Old Neriak.
The world outside Gorowyn and Kunark is no less at war, and there is no less cruelty to be found there.”
The hunter considers her words. With a soft snort, he says, “There is much that I have yet to learn about the world I live in, but I think that beauty is there to find as well.”
She smiles, a radiant display on the sharp features of her face. “Perhaps when you return to the Shattered Lands I can show you what I have learned of the world.”
He smiles, an unnatural expression for the jaw of the dragon-lizard but somehow fitting for the mood. “I think I’d enjoy that. Let’s search for the beauty of this world together.”
Shattered 
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